Lesser Love
by Rosaliebyrd13
Summary: Sometimes Epic Love isn't Better and Lesser Love isn't less powerful. Bella Swan is meant for legendary love. ONESHOT please read and review!


"_I thought our story was epic, you know, you and me… Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. EPIC." Logan Echolls to Veronica Mars._

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Isabella is a romantic.

(She knows this, but sometimes it's hard to remember that between being Bella-the-caregiver and Bella-the-responsible she_ is_ Bella-the-Romantic.)

When she was growing up, Isabella watched her mother go from lover to lover, always searching for the heart-stopping civilization-destroying love that story books talked about.

"Don't ever settle Bella!" Renee would say, looking deep into the eyes of her young daughter. "Don't you ever settle for anything less than the love that makes your head spin and your heart pound! Love is loud my darling girl, and it is fierce. It is not gentle and safe, it is terrifying and jaw-dropping and wonderful. Don't you ever settle for anything less."

And from these words, Isabella learned one very important lesson: in the world there is Epic Love and there is Lesser Love. Epic Love is Better. Lesser Love is Normal.

That is the truth that Isabella keeps in her always.

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Isabella is a romantic.

She reads romantic books, about romantic love – No, about Epic Love.

Epic Love is Heathcliff and Cathy.

Epic Love is Romeo and Juliet.

Pyramus and Thisbe, Cupid and Psyche, Epic Love is Paris and Helen.

She reads books in which cities are razed and people die, all for the love of two people.

And she aches for a love like that, because she is so ordinary, and that love is _extraordinary_. She aches for a love that would tear down an empire to find her again, and she longs for someone who would die without her.

(Not so secretly she despises the Lesser Love.)

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Epic Love is what she and Edward have.

They are willing to die for each other.

He will tear down nations to find her and she will give up her soul to stay with him.

It is Epic.

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Until it isn't anymore.

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When Edward leaves Isabella, she is devastated. And desolate.

(Later after the desolation withers she almost loves the feeling of devastation, because this devastation means that the love she has for him _is_ Epic. Not ordinary, but extraordinary. And certainly not Lesser.)

Charlie comes in to talk to her, during this period of devastation. He sits on the floor by her bed, and looks her right in the eyes, even though she doesn't want him to because devastation is not something shared when an Epic Love is Lost.

But he looks her in the eyes anyway, and he says exactly what he knows how to say.

"Hey Bells." She offers no reply. "I'm going to share a secret with you, something that only lucky people know." Isabella does not feel lucky. She feels desolate and devastated. "Bella, love is wonderful. And it's terrifying. But sometimes people mix that up a bit. Sometimes they say love _has to be_ terrifying and daring and bold and loud and all sorts of other stuff." Charlie laughs, but she cannot. So he continues, "Renee used to say that the best kind of love is the kind that is chaotic. She used to say that it's not worth it to love someone if you aren't willing to give up everything for them. That it's not worth being loved if that person isn't willing to raze the world for you." They both sigh, caught up in the memory of Renee. Caught up in her chaos.

"But…" And now Charlie really looks at Isabella, grips her face between his two hands. "I don't think she's right. Bella, love isn't about destroying things and giving up bits of yourself to be with the other person! Love is about how long you're willing to stand in line at the DMV with someone. And it's about how much ice cream you can eat together in one night. Bella" He shakes her a little, trying to drive his point home "Love is simple. It is easy, not because it's actually easy, but because the simplicity of Love matters so much more than the drama."

Bella remains silent, still desolated and devastated by the loss of her Epic Love.

(Very silently she thinks her father must not know what real love feels like.

Very silently she thinks that her father's version of love is not romantic in the least bit.

And she feels sorry for her father, sorry that he has never experienced Epic Love.)

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For a while Isabella goes through a stage where she is angry.

Angry that she is not special enough for Epic Love.

Angry that for the rest of her life she will only know Lesser Love.

Angry that her Epic Lover (whose name she cannot think because the power of her love still burns in her heart) left her and told her to be safe.

Safe!

Bah!

Epic Love is not meant to be safe! Epic love is meant to be loud and bold and brave and foolish and extraordinary.

What makes her angriest is that her Epic Lover obviously did not understand how Epic her love was.

So she sets out to prove it to him.

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And then Isabella meets Jacob.

Jacob is young, and good with cars and dirt bikes.

Jacob is quiet, but he is also loud like a boy, innocent like a boy, daring like a boy.

He embodies everything Epic Love could be, but he is entirely the opposite of it.

Because Jacob is simple, not complicated. Jacob is the sunshine, not a storm.

And he makes Isabella feel more like Bella, more like a little girl who does daring things just because she can, and who shortens her name because _who ever heard a name as ridiculous as Isabella? _

Jake and Bella are best friends.

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Even after he is revealed to be not simply Jake but Jacob the werewolf and someday leader of the Pack, Jake remains simple.

(Sometimes Bella secretly envies Jake's ability to keep things so simple when they should be turning complicated. Sometimes, she is secretly very jealous of Jake's ability to stay entirely away from the realm of Epic Love.)

(Silently and in the dead of night, Bella thinks to herself that perhaps she can love Jake.

Not Epic Love, of course, but Lesser Love. She could live with that.)

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When Bella hangs out with Jake, there is nothing special about her. She is not extraordinary. She is simple. She is Bella and he is Jake and they are just two teenagers who know nothing about Epic Love.

(They are just two teenagers who _care_ nothing about Epic Love.)

They are just two teenagers who don't think in terms of forever because forever is an awfully long way away.

Bella likes it this way.

They walk along the side of the highway because it's sunny and the gas station a mile down has ice cream. He braids flowers into her hair and gives her a piggy-back ride. She buys him ice cream and kisses his cheek while her lips are still wet (and a bit sticky) from her first lick.

They walk back together, and it is nothing amazing.

It is simply like all the other afternoons they've spent together.

Perfect.

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Just when Bella is feeling more and more like someone simple, something Epic happens.

Alice (who has an Epic Love entirely her own) shows up on her doorstep with extraordinary news.

Isabella needs to save Edward.

Edward cannot bear to live in a world without her in it, and has gone to do something Dramatic. Alice explains in a trilling soprano that the only way for Isabella to save Edward is for her to fly to Italy.

So Isabella leaves behind the Simple (the Lesser) and drives with Alice to the airport.

Epic Love, she remembers, is dramatic. It is chaotic. It is painful and frightening and all sorts of other things.

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Hours, maybe even days later, Isabella finds herself on another airplane, this time headed for Seattle instead of away from it.

She is exhausted, but she cannot sleep.

Because Epic Love is loud. And it is fierce. The Epic Love facing her now is full of sacrifices and pain. It has teeth and preys on the weak and the naïve.

The Epic Love facing her has blood red eyes.

Isabella cannot sleep.

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Sometime after she is returned home, and after she has passed out, woken up, and passed out again, Isabella wakes up to find herself alone.

Edward desperately needs to hunt, but reassures her of his love before he goes. Charlie has confined her to her room, furious at her. Jake hasn't come around, hasn't called.

And somewhere far away, dark Kings reassure themselves of her eminent demise. Soon she will be one of them.

Bella can't sleep anymore.

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The wall opposite Bella's bed is lilac. On it are pictures of her parents. Pictures of her friends from Phoenix are spread out and scattered among snapshots from when she first moved to Forks (God she looked so young) as well as newer ones of her and the Pack on the beach (so happy, playing cards with the boys and in the making cupcakes with the girls).

Recently returned to its spot of honor, is a single picture of Edward and Isabella, the night of Prom. He looks still and she looks shy.

Briefly Bella wonders why the pictures feel so different.

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Her mind won't rest, and so she sits on the bed, refusing to allow herself to move until she's worked out some of her thoughts.

Love is Epic. She knows this, and she remembers it. Epic Love is the type you want; it is the only kind worth having. Lesser Love is for people who settle.

(Isabella and Edward had Epic Love.

She's no longer sure that they _have_ Epic Love, but she knows they _had _it. She remembers it distinctly: the feeling that she was falling faster than ever before, the overwhelmingness of it all. Sometimes she was _so afraid_, and other times she was _so happy_, the kind of happiness that makes everything else look gray and useless.

Being Edward's Isabella made life flashing lights and neon and constant adrenaline. Being Edward's Isabella brought about thoughts like _I'm not very athletic now, but if I decided to be Edward's Isabella forever, then I could be athletic and I wonder what that's like_ and _I'm not interesting now, but I could be_.

Being Edward's Isabella meant possibilities. It still means possibilities.

And with Edward, there was always that amazing feeling that Isabella remembers her mother describing.

Isabella remembers how Epic Love feels.)

(Quietly, in the back of her head, Bella remembers the simplicity of being Jake's Bella.

Except for even when she was Jake's Bella, she wasn't really his. Really she was a bit his and a bit Edward's and she was vampire girl and wolf girl and she was a paleface and she was a townie and she was a city girl from Phoenix and she was a book lover and a teen-fiction denouncer.

When she was Jake's Bella she was little tiny parts that were all her and at the same time those little tiny parts were really all the things she'd picked up from other people over the years, pieces of them that she liked and took for herself.

Really it was all very complicated, but Jake made it simple, and he taught her how to make it simple for herself.

Really it was wonderful how easy everything was when she was Jake's Bella)

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Hours later, Charlie finds Bella on her bed, with tears silently streaming down her cheeks.

As soon as she sees him she starts crying in earnest, babbling about Love with capital letters and story book feelings.

It takes him a while, but eventually Charlie is able to discern what she is saying. (It makes him want to cry when he sees her sobbing, when he hears what she's so upset about. But it also makes him want to laugh.)

"Bella," Charlie says, and Bella quiets enough to listen, "I learned about Epic Love from Renee. With her, I was constantly falling, always flying. We were on top of the world together, and we didn't care what got in our way. For her, I would've killed. I would've died, I would've fought. For your mother I would have moved mountains and given up everything that makes me me. All of that just to keep her. Love with Renee was Epic.

"But, it was also exhausting. It cost me time with my family, it cost me promotions, it cost me pieces of myself that I once swore I would never lose. Loving your mother was wonderful and exhilarating, but it was awful too. And I couldn't do it. Then you came along and I realized that love shouldn't be about how much you would destroy for another person. Love is about simple things. Like giving my daughter a bubble bath. And teaching her how to walk."

They hold each other then, and Quietly Bella wonders if maybe she's had it wrong all along. Maybe Renee was wrong about how Epic Love is better, and maybe Charlie is right about how Lesser Love isn't really lesser.

Quietly Bella wonders how people manage to go on loving each other with all of this confusion.

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Bella remembers during the period of desolation and devastation.

She remembers thinking that Charlie only said that Real Love was Lesser Love because he didn't know what Epic Love was.

She remembers thinking that Epic Love meant being bold, and brave. Extraordinary and amazing.

And suddenly she realizes that, for her, choosing Epic Love means settling. For her, Epic Love is easy. Edward is easy. The Epic-ness of it all might actually be hard, but the actual choosing? That is neither bold nor brave.

It is much harder for her to be simple. It is much harder for Bella Swan to be Jake's Bella, and it is much harder for her to reject Epic Love than to accept it.

Bella stares at the lilac wall covered in photos, and she wants desperately to be brave.

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Later, Jake shows up at her doorstep.

His eyes are hard. (He keeps seeing Bella jumping in a car and driving away from him.)

Bella answers with red eyes and the biggest grin he's ever seen. (She remembers how simple he makes things, and she remembers how tired she is of excitement.)

(From the living room Charlie looks at them both and is very suddenly reminded how young they both are.)

"Jake," Bella says, and her voice is watery.

"Bella," Jake says, and his voice is wary.

"Would you like to come in?" She opens the door wider, and the smell of cupcakes surrounds them.

"Yeah, okay Bells."

He takes her hand, and she feels simple.

(It's the best feeling in the world.)

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The story doesn't come out immediately. They don't have a Tell All right then and there in the middle of the kitchen.

Instead it comes about more slowly.

(Naturally. Normally. Wonderfully.)

Right then and there they ice cupcakes, and she tells him how much she loves sweet food.

And that is how it starts.

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The story doesn't really end.

More like, things keep winding down.

Edward and his family don't come back.

Weeks later the Pack destroys Victoria and five newborns that she'd created.

Bella graduates, and decides to go to Peninsula for a year, at least.

Jake gets his GED and opens a small shop.

And together they keep things simple, normal, uncomplicated.

(and secretly everyone is impressed with how drama-free they manage to be. Whenever they're asked about it though, Bella and Jake just laugh. And they mummer some nonsense about lesser love.)

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Years Later, after stars have died and new galaxies have been formed, their story becomes Legend.

It is Epic Love, the people say, that brought the girl and the boy together.

This is the type of love, they say, that can move mountains and raze civilizations. But it also can build cities and conquer dark vampire Kings.

Perfect, really.


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